Dr. Orrin H. Pilkey, professor emeritus of geology, division of earth and ocean science, at Duke University, and South Carolina Lowcountry batik artist Mary Edna Fraser will be featured in the event, which is free and open to the public.

Pilkey, an internationally recognized expert on the geology of barrier islands, is an academic who engages in public advocacy about science-related issues. He has written dozens of books and articles explaining coastal processes to lay readers, and he is a frequent and outspoken interviewee in the mainstream media. He takes on climate change “deniers” in a primer of the science of global change and its effects. After he explains the greenhouse effect, Pilkey turns to the damage it is causing: sea level rise, ocean acidification, glacier and sea ice melting, changing habitats, desertification, and the threats to animals, humans, coral reefs, marshes, and mangroves.

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Wofford College and Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned utility, formed a partnership to create the Santee Cooper Lecture Series on Sustainability and Energy. Speakers spend time on Wofford’s campus in downtown Spartanburg and at the college’s Goodall Environmental Studies Center on the Lawson’s Fork Creek in Glendale, S.C. The Santee Cooper Lecture Series on Sustainability and Energy Issues brings speakers from around the world, giving them a platform to discuss timely and pressing environmental issues with Wofford faculty and students, as well as students from the Spartanburg County public school systems and interested citizens.